Figurine question

I got hold of these figurines at an auction. I do not know anything about the history of them, but to me they have a Dresden/German design. I could be wrong so I have decided to post here!

Hopefully someone can enlighten me. I am not sure the history of the item but I think it is old. As the place in England I managed to buy it from, deals in a lot of old antiques. I have been searching other forums to find the answer on the origin of the figurines but yet to no avail.

I have no received a definitive answer so I have decided to post here. As I have read a lot on this website but never posted.

But it is a great source of information. I hope someone can help me.

It has been frustrating as for about Two weeks I cannot find out about these figurines. I constantly am studying to find out the exact origin of any figurines I get, as I eventually will sell them on.

I don't want to ever advertise something as "Dresden" in origin when it could be French!

Comments for Figurine question

The short answer is these are currently unidentifiable. However, I will say what I think their most likely origin is based on the evidence and logical thinking.

The marking 5030 / 7 is on both of them - an identical backstamp for two different figurines which means it is a production mark of some description. This mark, however, is not found on any other figurine at all anywhere online currently. I ran a coded google search which would have tracked down anything else with the same mark.

This means this is not a common marking, but the tooling of the mark is high quality and especially made in a style that would suggest 19th century.

The modelling and style of the figurines are also very much mid to late 19th century. They are too well modelled and decorated to be 20th century homage or mass-production. The faces are also distinctly mid to late 19th century.

I hear what you are saying that they have a French look. However, unless by Samson, most of the French figures I have come across in this type of dress are bisque not glazed. The hands remain reasonably high quality in modelling and finish despite the glazing - which is a difficult feat.

The clay body looks decidedly continental - very white and clean, giving, at least to my eye, a very clinical, technical efficient German appearance.

So these could either be Samson or an unknown German maker (not Dresden, as the city hosted only decorators not makers - much production of this type came from outside that region - Thuringia, Bavaria etc etc)

I am not sure if we will ever get more on these, but I hope we do.

Best regards

Peter

Great infoby: Sasha

Thank you for the reply Peter. Very knowledgable and I appreicate the information.